Dear Editor,
I wish to inform the general public that the idea of carbon trading was that of the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, and not Bharrat Jagdeo.
Myself and the late Dr. Jagan discussed and talked about this in my house in Essequibo on a number of occasions, prior to 1992. The idea came about while discussing how we can get real money from our forest by just not cutting trees and process that into lumber.
Dr. Jagan came up with the idea of trading our vast forest for carbon credit. I told him the idea sounded real great and that he should really work on it, but at the same time we must not allow the foreigners to control and dictate for our forest, as what is happening today.
Also, people who are making a decent living from the forest should be able to continue doing so without any additional restrictions that will hamper their livelihood.
Norway is one of the largest polluters on the planet… a very wealthy oil-producing country. Today, Norway is telling us what to do in our forest, and it is paying a pittance to our country.
Because of the restrictions in the forestry sector, there is a great shortage of lumber on the local market, and we cannot even meet our export demands. This is causing local lumber prices to escalate.
If a survey is carried out with all the stakeholders in the forestry sector, one will learn of the serious problems they are facing because of the number of restrictions in the forestry sector. This is all because Norway makes the decision on how we should manage our forest.
Guyana’s forest cover will remain until the end of time. We were taught by the British how to do conservative forestry (logging), and that is what we were doing for the past 150 years.
Today, there are so many restrictions and regulations that are forcing quite a number of stakeholders out of the business.
If one travels around this country, they will see many sawmills closed. Our government needs to ask themselves why.
Norway is giving Indonesia US$1B for restricting the cutting of trees and the issuance and renewal of permits. But this money is not given to the government to squander… the money goes to the stakeholders so that they can start new ventures, to sustain themselves, families and workers.
In closing, I wish to say that if Dr. Jagan was alive today, he would have never agreed to the demands of the Norwegians on our forest. He would have told them to pay up real money or get out.
Dr. Jagan will always be remembered by the people for what he stood for.
Concerned Observer
Letters section Kaiteur News,Dec 2nd,2011
I wish to inform the general public that the idea of carbon trading was that of the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, and not Bharrat Jagdeo.
Myself and the late Dr. Jagan discussed and talked about this in my house in Essequibo on a number of occasions, prior to 1992. The idea came about while discussing how we can get real money from our forest by just not cutting trees and process that into lumber.
Dr. Jagan came up with the idea of trading our vast forest for carbon credit. I told him the idea sounded real great and that he should really work on it, but at the same time we must not allow the foreigners to control and dictate for our forest, as what is happening today.
Also, people who are making a decent living from the forest should be able to continue doing so without any additional restrictions that will hamper their livelihood.
Norway is one of the largest polluters on the planet… a very wealthy oil-producing country. Today, Norway is telling us what to do in our forest, and it is paying a pittance to our country.
Because of the restrictions in the forestry sector, there is a great shortage of lumber on the local market, and we cannot even meet our export demands. This is causing local lumber prices to escalate.
If a survey is carried out with all the stakeholders in the forestry sector, one will learn of the serious problems they are facing because of the number of restrictions in the forestry sector. This is all because Norway makes the decision on how we should manage our forest.
Guyana’s forest cover will remain until the end of time. We were taught by the British how to do conservative forestry (logging), and that is what we were doing for the past 150 years.
Today, there are so many restrictions and regulations that are forcing quite a number of stakeholders out of the business.
If one travels around this country, they will see many sawmills closed. Our government needs to ask themselves why.
Norway is giving Indonesia US$1B for restricting the cutting of trees and the issuance and renewal of permits. But this money is not given to the government to squander… the money goes to the stakeholders so that they can start new ventures, to sustain themselves, families and workers.
In closing, I wish to say that if Dr. Jagan was alive today, he would have never agreed to the demands of the Norwegians on our forest. He would have told them to pay up real money or get out.
Dr. Jagan will always be remembered by the people for what he stood for.
Concerned Observer
Letters section Kaiteur News,Dec 2nd,2011
